For most Americans, Veterans Day typically is pretty much business as usual. Those lucky enough to actually have today off from work most likely will use the extra time to carry out largely mundane everyday tasks. With winter weather fast approaching, many will use the day to shop for new clothes, or catch up on household chores or errands. Some will make travel reservations for the upcoming holidays. Sadly, precious few will give a scarce thought to the reason President Woodrow Wilson in 1919 — exactly one year after the Treaty of Versailles ended World War I — first proclaimed Nov. 11 as a day to honor the nation’s war veterans.

A startling new book released today and reviewed on Politico offers perhaps the most disturbing account yet of the gross malfeasance that a growing parade of critics and ex-insiders alike say seems to permeate the current executive branch of our government. “The Way of the World,” written by author and Pulitzer Prize-winning former Wall Street Journal reporter Ron Suskind, goes far beyond various past accounts that have claimed the White House in the run-up to Operation Iraqi Freedom intentionally ignored any intelligence or evidence that interfered with its own predetermined war mindset. If only they had stopped there.